


Juctim

by chibiVeneficus



Series: Fabula [2]
Category: Transformers - All Media Types, Transformers Generation One
Genre: Angst, Gen, Mild Gore, Minor Character Death
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-12
Updated: 2019-12-12
Packaged: 2021-02-26 18:21:24
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,300
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21762925
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/chibiVeneficus/pseuds/chibiVeneficus
Summary: Mirage is kinda like Rapunzel. Except that the witch is his creator, no prince comes to the rescue, and he lives in the Tower until it comes tumbling down.
Series: Fabula [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1568473
Kudos: 13





	Juctim

**Author's Note:**

> I started this waaaay back in December of 2010 as an explanation as to why Mirage's view is the way it is in the second chapter of Verumi. I never expected it to take this long but better late than never!

Mirage has always wondered what it is like outside of his room.

He has texts and files and pictures of course, but he knows that they can’t be as good as the real thing. How can a mini holo-vid, after all, showoff the full brilliance of the Helix Crystal Gardens in Praxus? How can texts with dry wording convey the frantic energy of the Iacon traffic grids? How can they even begin to hope to match the splendors of the world outside that he knows is out there?

“Do you think Yuss’s Festival of Fabrics is as fun as this data file makes it out to be?” Mirage asks, using his finger to flick through the datapad‘s articles in search of something he hasn‘t read yet.

He doesn’t get an answer but he wasn’t expecting one in the first place.

“I just don’t think showing off flashy fabric would be any fun,” Mirage continues. “I might be bias though, seeing as how Mentor decided to lavish the room with all sorts of colorful fabrics that are just laying around. Still, I wonder what it’s like. What do you think, 25?”

25 doesn’t say his thoughts on the matter of Yuss’s vornly celebration. He gently pries the datapad out of the noble’s grip and replaces it with that orn’s lesson Mirage should have been reading. Mirage huffs but holds the pad without putting up a protest.

“I have got to get you a vocalizer. It feels like I’m talking to a wall for all the sparkling conversation we have,” the noble grouses as switches the datapad on. “But then again, I don’t know if that would do any good, you being a drone and all. At least you can help me these equations. Help me with this one.”

* * *

“And your grades? Are you doing well in your curriculum?”

“Yes, Mentor. I’ve gotten perfect scores on my latest test files,” Mirage says, standing just a bit taller. “You’ll be pleased to note that I did not require extensive help from 25 this time.”

“You shouldn’t need help from it at all. I commissioned you with the best processor and materials available on the market; I expect only the best from you, Mirage. You will take my place one orn and I want to make sure that you‘re prepared for managing the estates. You do not inspire much confidence when you mention you need help from a servant drone to understand your lessons.”

Ashamed at the criticizing words, Mirage lowers his optics. “Y-yes, Mentor. I promise to do better in the future.”

“Good. If that is all, I have some social meetings to attend to.”

“My sparking date is coming up soon!” He manages to say before the connection is terminated. He tries his best to not to shrink away at his Mentor’s reproachful look for speaking out of line. “I was wondering if maybe…if maybe I would be allowed to walk around the inside of the Tower a bit? Just a few hallways, nothing too much. Nowhere close to outside.”

“We have had this talk before, Mirage,” his Mentor rasps out. “It’s too dangerous for you to go outside. You are my only heir. The priests of Vector Sigma have refused my appeals for another creation due to my health. I can’t allow anything to happen to you.”

“But surely -- “

“No, Mirage. And that is final.” With a faint click, the video feed turns off.

Mirage doesn’t know how long he stands in front of the terminal, staring at the black screen hoping that the face of his Mentor will reappear. He snaps back to reality when he hears the subtle buzzing of another mechoid’s systems joining him in his silent watch.

“…There’s a game of Glitchmice and Turbofoxes still unfinished in the parlor,” he mummers to the familiar noise. “Let’s go finish that before going back to my studies.”

* * *

“His spark guttered out too fast for us to try emergency respark. There was nothing we could do.”

“Was he in any pain?”

“No more than the usual. If there was any increase, it was over before he could feel much of it.”

The following silence grows heavy with unvoiced thoughts. The medic looks from the noble to the grayed-out form laying on the elaborate berth, too familiar with this occurrence in different settings to let it affect him anymore.

“I’ll give you a moment to say any final goodbyes. I’ll be out in the hall when you’re done.” The medic turns and walks away, paying no mind to the servant drone standing by the wall. The door closes behind him with an overloud loud _click_. The silence, briefly chased away by the noise, falls back into place and settles like a shroud.

“…The first time I ever see you in person, it’s to claim ownership of the estates after your deactivation.” The hesitant words echo in the bare, sterile chamber, but it does nothing to chase away the oppressive hush. “Do you know that this is only the fourth time I’ve ever been out of the Tower? The other nobles keep calling security whenever they catch sight of me. They haven’t realized yet that I’ve lived here all my life.”

Mirage hesitates, shuffling in place before halting and curling his hands into fists. “I don’t know how to interact with the other nobles for all the lessons you had me take on social interaction. Speaking to others feels so awkward. I don’t know what I’m going to do when I receive an invitation for one of their ornly parties. Pretend that I belong there, probably.

“And just listen to me ramble on. If you were still alive, you’d be horrified at my behavior right now. You were always criticizing me. No matter what I did, it was never good enough. You wanted more, always _more_. I had to be the perfect successor to the _great_ noble Claret, never mind what I thought on the matter. Never mind what I wanted.”

His voice trails off into the silence, feeling as if he’s stepped over an invisible boundary and that there’s no turning back.

“Just what am I suppose to feel?” Mirage whispers to the corpse once the silence becomes too much to bear. “I’m so confused, Mentor. I shouldn’t be so happy at your passing. I should be mourning with the rest of the nobles, not wishing that all the formalities were over with so that I can start running the estates. Do something other than just sit in my room and look at the walls, thinking.”

Mirage stares at the rusted, grayed out features of the mech who has kept him locked up for most of his life in the name of ‘protecting’ him from imaginary assassins. His spark roils with confusing emotions, the inappropriate happiness swelling and breaking free like an hellhound finding a chink in its leash. The happiness brings a hitchhiker along with it, a burning anger composed of unfairness that has been lurking for vorns upon vorns, building upon itself in complete secrecy. One of his hands, still curled into a tight fist, lifts itself upward until it hovers above the dead mech’s face, shaking.

A white hand closes over the fist, coaxing it gently downwards back to his side until it loses its capacity for violence. The frenzied emotions that are ruling Mirage’s conscious thoughts bleed out with the movement, leaving him with the hollow emptiness he has befriended over the vorns. He shakes off the hand and turns his back to the corpse, unconsciously straightening his frame and masking his face with polite neutrality. He heads for the door with sharp, hurried steps.

“Come along, 25,” Mirage calls over his shoulder even though he knows the drone is following just behind him. “There’s still preparations to be done before he can be put to rest. The sooner they’re done, the sooner this is all behind us.”

* * *

Mirage wonders why he had ever wanted to leave his room. He has learned the hard way that the world surrounding it is no where near as warm or inviting as he had made it out to be in his imaginings. Late in the night, as he waits for recharge to claim him, Mirage can almost fool himself into thinking that his life is but a disturbing memory dump and that when he wakes up _this_ time his life will resume its proper course.

However, the reality that he escapes for awhile is always the one he wakes back up to. Mirage manages to tucks his disappointment away before rising to tackle whatever the new orn brings him.

Vorns pass by the noble in this manner. Mirage finds it easier and easier not to care about what he is doing so long as it is somehow beneficial towards his estate’s value. It’s the one thing that he actually knows how to do by himself. Mirage thinks, often in a sardonic manner, that it’s the only thing he _is_ good for since managing the estates was what he was commissioned to do in the first place. None of his fellow Tower’s residents try to sway him away from this line of thinking.

Often it is only 25’s steadfast loyalty that keeps Mirage tethered to reality. The drone is always by his side, offering the exact thing he needs the moment he needs it, be it fuel when he works late or as a convenient distraction to escape longwinded meetings. 25 is the truest friend he has because it doesn’t try to backstab him to advance its own position like many others have attempted.

Mirage knows that as long as he has 25, he can get through anything.

* * *

Pain greets Mirage as he onlines. The error signals are a foreign entity and it takes him a long moment to push the warnings aside. Most are screaming about cosmetic damage - there doesn’t seem to be a piece of him that hasn’t been dented - but others state in blaring red that his left leg and half of his abdomen is missing. It doesn’t feel as if those parts of him are gone, though.

What the noble finds more alarming is his lack of memory leading up to the damage reports. He remembers walking down a hallway, reading over the latest news reports concerning the rallies cropping up more often in the south, when the distinct sound of Seeker engines came to his attention. It had been odd seeing as how all Cybertronians flight-modes with noisy propulsion are banned from flying in Tower airspace but nothing more than that: odd. Mirage had dismissed it as unimportant, continuing his trek back to his office, and then…nothing.

Mirage distracts himself from this disturbing not-knowing by trying to shift upwards, only just realizing that he’s prone on his back and covered by a hard, heavy object. The movement makes his sensor flare up with renewed pain and the feedback forces his intakes to stutter to a halt, his joints to lock up, and his optics to compulsorily reboot online. 

Cracked, red optics hover over his own and Mirage would know those optics anywhere and in any condition, but there’s something wrong with them, something _off_ about the image that reaches his processor through the pain. They’re too dull, their inner lighting only a fraction of the vibrant ruby red that he’s so familiar with, and the tiny moving parts that make up the whole in one of the optics is still and silent. Mirage has always made sure that 25 is in perfect working order, never allowing any malfunction to manifest. He has never allowed 25 to be broken in any way and the memories holding the answer taunt him with their absence.

Mirage tries to move again to the same results as before but it has the added side-effect of drawing the drone’s functional optic to him. He wants to ask so many questions but knows that only silence will be the returning answer. He loathes the fact that he never granted 25 with a vocalizer like he had wanted to, so many vorns ago.

Its optics scrunch up in the corners. Mirage only notices because their faces are so close together.

He realizes 25 is smiling at him.

_Oh,_ is all he can think.

The screech of machinery is sudden and deafening in the cramped space, and Mirage automatically tries to jerk away from the sound only to be stopped by his frame screaming protests as it knocks against his unyielding cradle. He’s forced to wait and see what is happening.

It takes time, time he cannot count because his chrono is broken, before the noise is explained as something working its way through the debris pinning him. Relief flushes through him at the thought of rescue; Mirage can’t feel anything below his neck now and he knows that cannot possible be a good sign.

A saw cuts its way through 25, cleaves his head in half like a thin sheet of gold. Energon and chips of delicate processor bits spray Mirage’s face. He doesn’t understand what he’s seeing at first. It takes never and an instant for him to process that 25 was right there and now he isn’t. 25’ll never be there again.

Mirage doesn’t know when he starts screaming and he can’t stop; the noise rips out of him without conscience input. There are mechs pulling on his frame, dragging him through the ruined body of his friend, but he pays them no attention. He clumsily tries to claw the pieces of 25 back together but his frame doesn’t work right and there’s warnings that won’t go away blaring about energon loss and low fluid pressure. He’s deaf to whatever the mechs shout at him. Hands grip his arms, pulling him up, through the corpse, and he tries to break free but he’s too weak to do more than futilely struggle.

Mirage doesn’t stop screaming until he falls into stasis lock.

* * *

When he awakens, he is under the care of an Autobot medic.

“Don’t move to much,” the medic says as he types away at a chart for another moment before setting it aside and moving his full attention onto Mirage.

“My name is Meltdown. An Autobot recovery team pulled you from the tower wreckage and stabilized you before you bleed out.“ Meltdown is all business as he goes through the full list of injuries Mirage had suffered.

“Do you have any questions?”

Of course he has questions. What had attacked the Towers? Seekers had carpet bombed them. Did anyone else survive the attack? Yes, Mirage is only one of a handful of survivors. It was lucky he was alive at all, he is informed, as if he should be thankful that his spark is still spinning.

Mirage had heard of the ruckus in Kaon, who hadn’t at this point, but he’d thought it confined there, that he was safe in his home. Kaon was so far away, how had it reached all the way to the outskirts of Iacon? The Decepticons, as they were calling themselves, had launched a wide scale offence targeting places of wealth and high social standing.

Mirage doesn’t ask of 25. He already knows the answer.

“I have to go finish my rounds. Please call for an assistant if you need anything.” Meltdown nods and takes his leave, leaving Mirage to face reality on his own.

With the destruction of the Towers, he has lost everything. All the vorns he has spent carefully managing his wealth, making deals and juggling alliances has been for naught. His bank accounts were with a small well known private bank that was also targeted in the attacks. It’s possible he doesn’t have two shanix to rub together now.

Mirage doesn’t have a home anymore. He doesn’t have his _friend_ anymore.

Despair washes over him but training keeps him sitting primly, his face neutral and his fists unclenched.

He can either go try to survive with the neutrals or sign up for the war effort. Mirage does not dwell on it long because he knows that both options are a guaranteed death warrant. The only difference is by how soon death will come.

He signs with the Autobots.

* * *

He hasn’t been with the Autobots long and already Mirage wishes his tower was still standing. He had known the rules there, had understood what was expected of him and what was allowed in polite company. But here he is always second guessing himself. It feels as if he’s trying to dance the waltz in a group performing the four-step, and no one bothers to teach him the steps. The other soldiers can tell he doesn’t belong and not only by his expensive frame type; his mannerisms don’t mesh well with common folk.

Mirage is still in administration limbo at this point. They don’t know what to do with a former noble that has no skills of use but has the undeniably useful asset of turning invisible at will. Basic training is mandatory of course but doesn’t start until the end of the orn. Until then, Mirage has nothing to occupy his time with.

He does not have his own room, or even his own charge port here. He spends his waking time wandering the grounds, observing the comings and goings of the base personnel. Remembering to remain visible is hard at times but his energy levels are quick to remind him to be more conscious. Energon is in short supply for him now, and he needs to learn how to ration.

The canteen is crowded at this hour, the ruckus echoing in the large space. Mirage resists turning back or going invisible to slink through the throng.

A red visor, so unusual in a sea of blue, catches his optic. A mech he hasn’t seen before sits alone amongst the crowded tables. It isn’t hard to figure out why he’s been ostracized - red optics are a common trait of mechs from the south simply because it provides better visuals in low lighting. The majority of the decepticons have red optics.

A silly reason but Mirage is familiar with sillier ones.

Red had meant safe, once. Had meant friend and confidant. Mirage finds himself gravitating towards the mech after receiving his ration.

“Uh, hi there,” the mech says when he notices Mirage stopping at his table, his tone friendly even as his mouth turns in an uncertain smile. There‘s a soft accent to his speech but Mirage doesn’t know where to place it. “Can I help you?”

“Is this seat taken?”

“N-no, go ahead.” Surprise is clear in his face and his voice holds disbelief but he gestures to the chair opposite of him and Mirage gracefully seats himself.

Awkward silence falls over them but Mirage knows how to weld such inconveniences into useful weapons. He waits until it stretches to uncomfortable and then a moment after before speaking up.

“I don’t believe I’ve seen you before. Have you been stationed here long?”

“Only for an orn. They’re still deciding where my placement will be.”

Mirage lets loose an understanding chuckle. “I’m in the same predicament, as it were. It seems like bureaucracy takes its time no matter who’s in charge.”

The mech’s tense shoulders relax a little. “Yeah, I just hope that they don’t take too long. I tend to get a little stir crazy if I’m cooped up too long in one place.”

Mirage hums in agreement because he understands all too well and takes a sip of his cube.

“Forgive me, I haven’t asked for your name yet.”

“Trailbreaker,” the mechs says. The smile he gives is small but radiant. “Yours?”

“Mirage. A pleasure to meet you,” he replies, and it is the start of a very long friendship.


End file.
